Follow Five Ten

Saturday the 17th of September was one of those days I can only describe as un-motivating. It was raining and cold as we packed the car. It dumped for the entire 1 hour drive to Rifle Mountain Park. At one point I began laughing and questioned Andrew about why we were still driving. I’d suggested throwing in the towel before we even made it to the highway. A day at the Glenwood Hot Springs was sounding perfect to me. But we kept driving. The canyon was pretty much empty when we arrived. Everything looked a little darker...

When we think about Five Ten, two words come to mind: hard and impressive. (That's not what we meant, so get your mind out of the gutter.) Hard and impressive sends was the story of the week when Five Ten invaded the Getu Valley in China. (probably shouldn't put "invade" and "China" in the same sentence. But, what are you gonna do?) Gabriel Moroni sended the 9a (5.14d) project "Coup de Bamboo" for the first ascent; Ethan Pringle and Sean Villanueva are getting so very close to finishing "Dancing with the...

Winter?I know in my last blog I was really happy that the fall weather had arrived. Now Winter seems to be here. last week we got a foot of snow and now its snowing again. I’m all for freezing temps but the white stuff makes everything impossible. But I’m still highly motivated to keep getting out there. Even if I have to trap of the top of the boulder. I’m hoping to get back to a fairly dry boulder after the snow. We’ll see what happens!

We’ve been here in China for exactly one week and despite what I worried about for the first couple of days we got here, it has flown by. That’s right when confronted with the reality of smelly quarters, cold showers, first days of cloudy skies and drizzly rain, my severely jet-lagged self started to say, “Hum, OK, is it over yet?” Luckily it only took a few sleeping pill induced nights, immediate love of the local cuisine and one look at the “out-of-control-would-only-exist-in-China” limestone caves, to start really having fun and start seeing our time slip away before my...